Guardrails are traffic barriers placed along roadsides to screen errant vehicles from hazards behind the barrier. A common guardrail in the U.S. is constructed using a standard steel W-beam or three-beam mounted on spaced wood or steel posts. Alternative guardrail installation designs incorporate a box beam rail member wherein the rail member may be a tubular beam member having a square or rectangular cross-section. Box beam guardrails are often popular in geographical locations that receive significant amounts of snow, as the use of box beam guardrails permits wider support post spacing and greater ground clearance as compared to W-beam and three-beam rail systems, and thus may reduce snow drift problems.
Another type of highway safety device is cable safety systems and cable barriers, which have been installed along edges of roadways and highways for many years. Cable safety systems and cable barriers have also been installed along medians between roadways and/or highways. Cable safety systems generally include one or more horizontal cables attached to support posts. For some applications cable safety systems and cable barriers may reduce damage to an impacting vehicle and/or injury to occupants of the impacting vehicle as compared with other types of highway safety systems and highway barriers.
Cable safety systems are often designed and installed with at least one cable mounted horizontally on a plurality of generally vertical support posts. The number of cables may vary depending on various factors such as the type of vehicles using the associated roadway and the hazard which required installation of the cable safety system. The length of a cable safety system is generally determined based on the adjacent roadside hazard. Each cable is typically installed at a selected height relative to the ground and with selected vertical spacing between adjacent cables. Associated support posts are installed with desired horizontal spacing between adjacent posts.
One recognized limitation of many cable safety systems is excessive deflection of associated cables during a vehicle impact. Deflection associated with a cable safety system may be larger than deflection of a conventional guardrail when subjected to the same type of vehicle impact. Such deflection frequently determines maximum allowed spacing between adjacent posts for satisfactory performance of the cable safety system. Large deflection during a vehicle impact also increases the risk of the vehicle running over the cables and being exposed to the hazard that required installation of the cable safety system. Calculating performance of many cable safety systems is often difficult due to unpredictable interactions between associated posts and cables during a vehicle impact. Depending upon car type, speed and angle of impact, cables may release as far as ten (10) or most posts spaced ahead of the impact location. Cable release from posts often causes much larger deflections than expected or calculated.
From full scale crash testing and from real life experience, it has been determined that keeping the length of unsupported cables as short as possible will generally reduce deflection. The longer the distance between adjacent posts supporting associated cables, the larger the deflection will generally be during a vehicle impact. An increased number of posts (shorter post spacing) will generally decrease deflection. However, shorter spacing between posts affects total cost of a cable safety system, not only material, but also installation cost.
During the past several years, cable safety systems have been used as an alternative to traditional guardrail systems. These cable safety systems address some of the weaknesses of prior cable safety systems by using pre-stretched cables and/or reducing spacing between adjacent posts to reduce deflection to an acceptable level. A consultant report “Dynamic Analysis of Cable Guardrail” issued in April 1994 by an ES-Consult in Denmark, established a model for various parameters, which affect performance and design considerations for acceptable deflection of cable safety systems.
Standards have been developed within the European standardization body, CEN (Commite Europeen de Normalisation), for impact tests performed on safety systems and barriers. These barrier impact tests are described in CEN 1317, Road Restraint Systems. According to the CEN standards, safety systems and barriers are to be impact tested at different containment levels. The elongation or deformation of a barrier is also measured to determine a safe working width. The environment in which the barrier is to be constructed generally determines appropriate containment level as well as permissible working width. The CEN standard generally requires that the risk of injury in a collision with the barrier is minimized (injury risk class). CEN standards are used in the European countries and several countries near Europe, among others.
NCHRP stands for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program, a program developed by the Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council, USA. Report 350 is entitled “Recommended Procedures for the Safety Performance Evaluation of Highway Features” and may be commonly referred to as the NCHRP 350 Standard. The standard describes how impact tests should be conducted. Test results may be used to determine elongation or deformation and safe working widths. This standard is used mainly in the USA and is predominately used in Australia and New Zealand.